This invention relates to liquid dispensing metering valves particularly for dispensing measured amounts of liquid from bottles and constitutes an improvement upon the valve of my U.S. Pat. No. 4,049,162 which is incorporated herein by reference.
Said patent shows a metering valve which may be attached to an inverted bottle. It has an internal metering chamber with an inlet from the bottle outlet and a dispensing outlet closed by a lever-actuated cover. Inside the chamber is a ball which floats in the liquid when the chamber is full but drops as the chamber empties to close the dispensing outlet, thus dispensing a measured quantity of liquid each time the lever is actuated. When the cover is allowed to close after each dispensing operation the ball can leave its seat in the dispensing opening and again float to the top of the chamber as the latter refills.
While the above device functions as intended, it has been found that its high cost of manufacture is a deterrant to its commercialization. It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide a dispensing and metering valve of the general type disclosed in my said patent which can be manufactured at much less cost and which will nevertheless perform its metering and dispensing function satisfactorily.